The 19-year-old woman from Derbyshire is pictured right on her way to court in Famagusta earlier this month
A British teenager who claimed she was gang raped by 12 Israeli men has been found guilty of lying about the attack.
The 19-year-old was convicted by a court in Cyprus of making up the story that she was the victim of a brutal assault.
A judge, who branded her an ‘unreliable witness, found that she had lied in revenge for being filmed having sex with a man she had met at her hotel.
The woman, who MailOnline has chosen not to name, claimed she was held down and assaulted by a group of men after they burst into a hotel bedroom.
But after the dozen suspects were arrested police noticed she had given conflicting statements and said she later admitted lying.
The woman claimed she was bullied by police into retracting her statement with her defence team arguing the retraction could not be relied on.
But after a trial spread over four months, judge Michalis Papathanasiou ruled she had lied about the original assault and convicted her on a single charge of public mischief.
The teenager, from Derbyshire, insisted she was assaulted in the early hours of July 17 at a budget hotel where she was living while working in the resort of Ayia Napa known for his raucous nightlife.
She had begun a holiday romance with a 21-year-old Israeli called Sam who was staying at the Pambos Napa Rocks hotel with a group of friends.
The court heard she had sex with Sam on two nights prior to the attack when his friends were in the room and filmed them on their phones.
On the third night they met she claimed the same group of men, aged from 15 -22, burst into the room, held her down and raped her.
She ran semi naked to friends who took her to a medical centre at the hotel. Staff called police and she described in harrowing detail how she had been repeatedly raped.
Police swooped on the hotel and arrested a dozen Israelis who had been named by Sam as being in his room.
The woman accused 12 Israeli men of raping her in August but later recanted the accusation, which she says she was pressured to do by police. The men (pictured hear arriving at a court in July) have already been freed
DNA tests showed three of the men had some sexual contact with her, but they all claimed it had been consensual.
Police seized their mobile phones and discovered several had filmed the woman having sex with her holiday fling.
They had also become suspicious about the teen’s story after staff at a five-star hotel where she moved to after the alleged attack described how they saw her jumping on the bed with two friends because they were so happy with their luxury accommodation.
And when they went to collect her for further interviews, she was lounging by the swimming pool.
‘She did not seem like a woman who had only a day previously had been raped by 12 men, said a police source.
‘Of course, every person reacts differently to traumatic events, but this just seemed to be unusual behaviour.
Some of the Israeli men who were initially accused of rape are seen arriving in court on July 25
‘She just did not fit the picture of a typical person who has been raped, let alone raped by so many people.’
Police released five of the suspects a week after the incident saying they found no evidence that they had been present.
One of the Israelis was able to provide a selfie he had taken at the time of the attack showing he was in bed with his girlfriend.
The woman was called into the Ayia Napa police headquarters for further questioning where detectives said she voluntarily admitted lying about the rape.
The seven remaining Israelis were released without charge and flew home where they were given a heroes welcome by family and friends.
The woman was charged with public mischief and spent over a month in jail in Nicosia awaiting trial. Her passport was taken away preventing her from leaving the island.
The teenager spent more than a month in prison before she was granted bail at the end of August, but has not been allowed to leave the island. Pictured: The teenager arriving at a court hearing on December 12
The campaign group Justice Abroad took over her case and her family launched a GoFundMe page that raised almost £50,000 to pay for legal fees.
Her legal team attempted to get the retraction statement ruled out in a legal process known as a ‘trial within a trial’ that would have meant the charge being dropped.
But despite presenting expert evidence from a psychologist who said she was suffering from PTSD and a linguistic specialist who said the retraction statement was written by someone in broken English the judge ruled police had acted within the law at all time.
Judge Michalis Papathanasiou said the Brit, who at times had panic attacks while stood in the dock and scratched her hands until they bled, could not be believed. He called her an ‘unreliable witness’
Prosecutors said she had filed the original complaint as she felt ‘shamed and humiliated’ when she learned she had been filmed.
A veteran police doctor who examined her said he could find no visible signs of rape or violence.
Her parents were in court for the hearings spread over four months after the teenager was banned from leaving the island and stayed in a rented villa.
Pictured: The room of the Aiya Napa hotel room where the teenager claimed she had been attacked